Why Obamacare surprise? Column

Dec. 25, 2013
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by Don Campbell, USATODAY

by Don Campbell, USATODAY

I've been biting my tongue on the subject for months, but since President Obama has invited all kinds of people, from bartenders to radio talk-show hosts, to spread the word about Obamacare, I'd like to join the chorus.

He was speaking at a "youth summit," so maybe I'm presumptuous. I don't have a radio audience and can't host a bar-room happy hour - and I will definitely sound a little off-key. But while the president, in a disingenuous attempt at "rebranding" Obamacare, wants people to put lipstick on a pig, I'd prefer to talk about how Americans are coming to terms with the unadorned pig.

More to the point, I'd like to ask some questions:

Why are we being flooded with stories of people expressing surprise about the costs associated with Obamacare enrollment or purchasing individual plans that conform to the law's requirements? Don't tell me it's because you believed Obama when he made all those promises about blah, blah, blah. If you believed anything he said, shame on you.

I didn't believe him because at least four years ago I started asking my doctors - primary care and specialists - what they thought Obama's vision of health care reform would lead to. (This was more helpful than asking the American Medical Association, which endorsed Obamacare.) My docs talked mostly about three issues: the orchestrated rationing of health care, much more intervention by the government in health care decisions and higher costs for people like me. A couple of them predicted a coming doctor shortage, but that seemed self-serving.

Next questions:

Am I the only person in America who ever discussed with his doctors what was coming down the road? Why the shock and awe now that it's being rolled out? Why the fury over such short-term distractions as faulty websites and extended enrollment deadlines? Those are spear carriers at the opera. The headliners here are the transforming elements of Obamacare that my doctors suggested, and which will tell you all you need to know:

More government control of our lives. This is always a bad idea, and especially when it dictates your choices on something as personal as your relationship with your doctor and other health care professionals. The fact is, when Obamacare was being debated in Congress in late 2009, polls showed that as many as 86% of Americans were satisfied with their own health care plans, even as a majority supported helping those who didn't have access to health insurance.

Redistribution of income. It's defensible in theory for the well-off to pay more to prop up the less-well-off, but it would have been cheaper, I'd bet, for taxpayers to just buy basic health care for those who have none. But that, of course, would deny Obama his goal of having the government control everyone's health care with a ridiculous list of mandates.

Rationing. This is where many critics of Obamacare and I will probably part company. The truth is, rationing is inevitable under any scheme. It's also a reasonable option when it involves medical professionals and families - not the government - making decisions about end-of-life care. The further truth is that retired Baby Boomers are going to bankrupt Medicare if some form of rationing isn't employed in treating the terminally ill and the extreme elderly in the last six months or so of their lives.

If you accept these arguments, you might also agree with me that the news media could have done a better job of covering this drama. They should have been on red alert when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said in 2010 that "we have to pass the (Obamacare) bill so you can find out what's in it." That was an invitation to scrutinize every single word of the law and the thousands of pages of regulations it has spawned, and to seek out expert opinion on what their impact would be.

Alas, that didn't happen. Even so, there's no excuse for anyone with a doctor and an ounce of curiosity being shocked at what's unfolding before our eyes.

Don Campbell, a former Washington journalist and journalism educator, lives in Oakwood, Ohio, and is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.